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Two things: your phone and your child’s device (iPhone or iPad). Install ChoreKey on both — one purchase covers your whole family, so installing it on your child’s device costs nothing extra as long as it uses your Apple ID or Family Sharing. On your phone choose My device; on theirs choose My child’s device and scan the QR code from your phone.
Once, during setup — Apple requires the parental controls to be granted on the device itself, and that step belongs in your hands, not your kid’s. While you’re holding it you’ll pick the apps that lock, set your parent PIN, and hand it back. After that, everything — assigning chores, reviewing photos, unlocking — happens from your phone.
Apple’s Screen Time permission asks for that device’s own passcode — on your child’s iPad, that’s the passcode your child uses (or their Touch ID/Face ID). Tip: you can add your own fingerprint to their device first (Settings → Touch ID & Passcode) so future prompts are one touch for you.
That’s intentional: your family’s chores live in your private iCloud, so deleting or reinstalling the app doesn’t lose them. Re-pair the device and everything is where you left it. You can delete any chore you no longer want from the dashboard.
The apps and categories you choose during setup — games, video, social, whatever you pick. Phone, Messages, and Maps are never blocked, even when the shield is on. Calls home always work.
They do the chore, snap a photo, and submit. Your phone gets a notification, you check their work, and you approve right from your phone — their device unlocks within seconds. If they cut corners, send it back for a redo instead.
The approval waits for you — there’s no time pressure on your side. Your child can also hand the device to any parent at home, who can review and approve on the device itself with the parent PIN.
An approval is delivered within seconds when their device is online. If it was offline for more than 15 minutes after you approved, the unlock expires for safety — just approve again. A pull-down on their chore screen also forces a fresh check.
If you’ve set a home location, the lock lifts automatically when they leave and re-applies when they’re back. ChoreKey is about making home time productive, not punishing kids at school or out with friends.
They can’t. While a device is paired and a parent PIN is set, ChoreKey turns on the same iOS protection Screen Time uses for “Don’t Allow Deleting Apps.” Heads up: this blocks deleting any app on that device — that’s how Apple’s switch works. It releases the moment you unpair (PIN → Settings → Unpair from parent).
No. The PIN is created by you during setup, while the device is in your hands. The app never offers PIN creation to a paired device afterward, and wrong-guess lockouts slow down brute-forcing.
A determined kid who knows the device passcode can revoke it in iOS Settings — Apple allows that on a regular (non-child) Apple ID. ChoreKey detects the revocation and shows a tamper screen, so it’s never silent: you’ll know the moment you look at either device. For the strongest setup, use a child Apple ID in your Family Sharing group, where Apple itself gates Screen Time changes behind your parental controls.
On a paired device: open iOS Settings → Screen Time → ChoreKey and turn off its access (this releases the app-deletion lock), then delete ChoreKey, restart the device, and reinstall. Your chores come back from iCloud when you re-pair, and you’ll set a fresh PIN during setup. On a standalone device (no pairing): just delete, restart, reinstall. We don’t store your PIN anywhere off-device, so a reset like this is the only recovery — that’s a feature, not a bug.
ChoreKey is $2.99, once — one purchase covers your whole family through Family Sharing, so installing it on your child’s device costs nothing extra. Approving remotely from your own phone is an optional one-time $4.99 ChoreKey Plus unlock. No subscription anywhere, nothing recurring, nothing to cancel. You can skip Plus entirely and review with the parent PIN in person on the child’s device.
In your own private iCloud (Apple’s CloudKit), shared only between your family’s devices. We run no servers, see no chore data, and collect no analytics. Photos of finished chores stay within your family and are cleaned up automatically. Details in the privacy policy.
Yes — pair as many devices as you have kids (or add multiple kids on one shared device). Each kid gets their own list and status on your dashboard.